


Concerns

by orphan_account



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Chronic Pain, Cookies, Gen, Implied Relationships, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Painkillers, Platonic Relationships, fibromyalgia, look tags are hard okay, onscreen painkiller use
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-14
Updated: 2018-04-14
Packaged: 2019-04-22 20:11:42
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,993
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14316267
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: Keith has some problems with pain, Hunk is trying to help, some wires get crossed along the way.





	Concerns

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Mikiri](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Mikiri/gifts).



> Written for Mikiri! Chronic pain is hell and Hunk is precious.

                As Keith Kogane pressed send on the text, calling out of work for the third shift in a row, he wondered what God he’d managed to piss off this time around. Pain was one thing. He could _work_ through pain, when it was limited to the usual twitches in his legs and shoulders.

                But three Aleve later, his legs still felt like very, very heavy sticks attached to his hips, and the idea of picking up heavy boxes made him want to scream. _Still._ After three days.

                He dropped the phone on his chest with a loud whine. He was thirsty.

                Keith turned his head. His bottle of water was on the bedside table. He lifted his arm –

                -and whined again as his fingers fell a good two inches short. He was going to have to move whether he wanted to or not.

                Fibromyalgia could kiss his _ass,_ he thought with a dark glare at the offending bottle of water, which he imagined was _smirking_ at him. If he just shifted up a little, and over the side –

                “Woah woah woah _no-_ “

                The mattress gave way beneath him, and he slipped towards the floor. He caught himself on one leg – and a shock of pain reverberated up to his pelvis. He eased himself back down on the hardwood, and threw an arm over his eyes, trying to breathe.

                Fuck this shit. _Fuck_ this shit.

                And of course, right on cue, there was a knock at the door. Keith raised his head at the sound, and stared blankly at the pathway between him and the door. Lots of hallway. Walls to lean on. But not a lot of end-tables or shelves to hang onto.

                Keith grabbed onto the bed and managed to lever himself into a sitting position. “Who is it?”

                “Er, Hunk!”

                “…Is it _urgent?_ ”

                “That depends. How urgently do you want chocolate chip cookies?”

                Keith pressed his forehead to the duvet. He _did_ want cookies. “Is there weed in them?” he asked hopefully.

                “Uh, not last time I checked, no. Is that important?”

                “No, it’s fine.” Pain or no, talking to Hunk and eating baked goods had to be better than lying on the floor wishing that he could have all the benefits of dying without the part where he’d be. You know. Dead.

                He shifted down the floor until he could get a hand around the bedpost, and pulled himself up with a groan, closing his eyes as little lightning shocks ran through his legs again, pooling in little circles at his kneecaps. Well, he was standing. Which meant he could _reach_ the glass of water finally, along with the pain meds that had been sitting next to it in their orange bottle.

                Three. He’d take three. That was fine. That would help.

                “Are you still there?”

                “ _Yes,_ I’m still here,” Keith grumbled. “Give me five minutes.” He swallowed the pills and made a face, then started the journey towards the door. Once he was standing, it wasn’t _so_ bad. It was a little easier to ignore the dull ache that was screaming at him.

                He opened the door. “You promised cookies.”

                Hunk held up the tin with a smile – then the smile dropped as he looked Keith up and down. “Are – are you okay?”

                “Define okay. Cookies. Mouth. Now.”

                “If you’re going to demand that I put things in your mouth –“

                “I’m too cranky to pretend that the thought of sex with anybody doesn’t make me want to stab things.”

                “You know, some people _like_ that.”

                “You couldn’t just let me be innocent for a little while longer. Now are you going to come in and let me sit down or are you going to keep torturing me with mental images?”

                Hunk couldn’t seem to keep the grin off of his face. “You’re lucky I’m nice and going for door number one. Lance got a new girlfriend. And you know what _that_ means.”

                “Yeah, I-“ Keith closed his eyes as a sudden wave of nausea hit him. “I do. Yeah.”

                “Crap, did that actually bother you?”

                “No, it’s not that, I just-“

                Three pills. That would’ve been fine.

                With another wrench of nausea, Keith remembered the three _other_ pills he’d taken that morning, before calling out of work. Then the world started spinning, going distinctly black at the edges-

                “Keith? Keith!”

                Ow.

\----

                It took a few blinks for him to clear the blurriness from his eyes when he woke up – again - his throat as dry as a desert and hands tingling.

                “Oh thank god you’re awake. I was about to call the hospital – well, I probably still _should,_ but – well – I still don’t know what you took, and I’m just _really really happy you’re awake-“_ H

Keith flopped his head over, squinting until Hunk came into focus. He was wringing his hands, one of them clutching a cellphone. “…What I took?”

                “Yeah. I –“ Hunk gulped. His eyes were watery and red, and Keith realized he’d been crying. “I don’t know what’s going on, but you could have _told_ me-“ He cut himself off, took a deep breath and composed himself. “What’d you take before I showed up?”

                “Aleve.”

                Beat. Hunk blinked. “ _Aleve?_ You overdosed on _Aleve?_ ”

                “Yeah. What, what did you think I-“ Keith stopped mid-word, then gave Hunk the most unimpressed stare he could muster. “Really?”

                “I don’t know! You passed out! Out of nowhere! And – and you’ve been really depressed ever since all of that stuff with Shiro, and I _worry about you,_ and you’re always in bed, and my frame of reference for these things is-“

                “Lifetime movies?”

                “Shut up,” Hunk grumbled, sitting down on a chair next to Keith. “High school was… rough. Anyway. What happened?”

                “It’s kind of embarrassing,” Keith mumbled. His bones still felt like jelly. “I took three this morning cause everything hurt. And cause it didn’t really work, I… forgot.”

                “You forgot.” Beat. “Why’d you need _three?_ ”

                “Because I was in pain.”

                “Nobody needs _three_ Aleve-“

                “I do,” Keith snapped. God, his ears wouldn’t stop ringing. “I do. Okay? And I’m fine. I can sleep the rest off.”

                Hunk raised an eyebrow, looking skeptical. That was fair. Keith probably deserved it. “Dude, you’ve still got _six_ Aleve in your system. I think I should call the hospital if you’re accidentally taking too many anyway.”

                “They won’t do anything.”

                “They can pump your stomach, or-“

                “This has happened before, okay?” Keith reached forward and pushed down the cellphone in Hunk’s hand. “Yeah, they can pump my stomach. But they won’t give me anything actually useful because they’re worried about me getting addicted. And they can’t tell me _why_ I’m in pain so they think I’m making it up.”

                “What kind of pain?”

                He exhaled. He really… _really_ didn’t like talking about it. But Hunk was so worried about him, and – well – Keith _had_ passed out in front of him. “My legs. Usually. Sometimes it’s somewhere else, but my legs are the normal ones.”

                “And they’ve done like, X-rays and stuff?”

                “As many as Shiro could afford.” And there it was, that little twitch in Keith’s heart, a different kind of pain that reminded him that his one advocate was gone and that even he hadn’t had any answers.

                Hunk wasn’t _wrong_ to think Keith was depressed. He was. It was just that he had so many other things to worry about other than suicide.

                “Just…please don’t call the hospital,” Keith exhaled. “They’ll drag me there and then tell me there’s nothing wrong with me and then I’ll have to get home again.”

                “Okay. But you have to let me stay.”

                “As long as you didn’t expect a game of Twister out of me.” Keith tried to wrestle himself up off the couch –

                “Ah, ah. Lie down.” Hunk gently put a hand on Keith’s shoulder. “What do you need?”

                “A new body?”

                “I’ll send a letter to Santa for that one. Anything else?”

                Keith grumbled to himself for a little longer. Then – “A glass of water. Please.”

                “Alright. Also, I still have those cooki-“

                “ _Please._ ”

                Hunk got up and – with a surprisingly happy little hum – moved over to the kitchen. Keith couldn’t see him without turning his head, but he could hear him. He recognized the tune, too.

                “…crossed the deepest oceans, cargo across the sea, and if you don’t believe me, just put your hands on me…”

                “Didn’t take you for a Vanessa Carlton type,” Keith laughed.

                Hunk paused, tripping up mid-song. Then he reappeared, holding the glass of water and a plate of cookies. “My, er, high school girlfriend really liked that song. First dance.”

                Keith took the glass of the water and chugged about half of it, his parched throat soaking it in. Then what Hunk had said processed. “Girlfriend?”

                “Yeah. We, er, parted ways.” Hunk shrugged. “Apparently she needed somebody who would stop telling her to see a therapist and cramping her style.”

                “I’m sorry.”

                “Don’t be. It’s a cute song. The rest is history.”

                Keith didn’t know why it was so strange to him that Hunk had a history of his own. Everybody had something. “I never danced with Shiro. Always hurt too much.”

                “It’s kind of overrated, really. I mean, it’s fun. But there’s just as many things that are just as fun.”

                “Like making enough cookies to feed the entire apartment building?”

                “Like that, yeah!”

                “I still think they’d be great with weed.”

                “Hey, you know how much that shit costs? I’ll stick with Bulk Barn M&Ms. With how good they are they might as well be a drug.”

                “I question your candy-related decisions.”

                “Only the candy ones?”

\----

                Keith managed to make it to work the next day, ‘managed’ being the operative word. He managed to stand behind the cash register for six hours, and only had to sit down in the back and stifle the urge to cry once. He managed to only darkly think about shooting customers three times, and cutting off his own legs to get prosthetics twice.

                He got off work at ten in the evening, and all he could think about on the way up the elevator was how much he wanted to sleep. _I need more days off I need a job from home I need SOMETHING-_

-and the elevator doors opened on Hunk, sitting by Keith’s door with a Pyrex dish of what looked like shepherd’s pie on his lap. “Hey man! I was hoping I got your hours right. Otherwise this would’ve gotten really cold. Also I brought booze.” He lifted the bottle of wine by his legs with a grin.

                Keith suddenly didn’t feel so tired. He was still in pain – that didn’t go away – and he still stank of fries and processed meat and grease. But he’d forgotten how much helped just to come home to a friendly face.

                “I’m okay with that.”

                “Great! Wanna throw me your keys so I can open the door? The floor’s not as comfy as it looks.”

                Keith chuckled and dug in his pockets, tossing his keys at Hunk who grabbed them out the air. He got to his feet, unlocking the door, and Keith caught sight of what _else_ Hunk had brought with him, propped up on the wall.

                “What’s that?”

                “Oh, I was in a vintage store downtown earlier today. Apparently they’re closing down and, well, they have some cool stuff.” Hunk got the door open and backed into the apartment with a grin at Keith. “I thought you might appreciate it.”

                Keith reached out for the cane, rubbing his fingers over the carved wood. “Yeah. Yeah, I like it a lot.” It was old, burnished, with a little rubber foot that he could brace against the tiled floor

                Then he walked after Hunk into the apartment, leaning a little of his weight on the cane and easing the pressure on his knees, following the smell of food and the song that Hunk had started humming again.


End file.
